Joensuu

Don't confuse waiting for evidence before jumping to conclusions, with trying to have a pop a Pardew. Two completely different things.

Quite simply, you shouldn't disbelieve them. They haven't said anything tangible enough for anyone to disbelieve. They've just carefully worded a statement to say very little whatsoever. So little in fact, that they haven't given a reason for the departure. So what's there not to believe?

Right, so I'm sure you agree that we don't know for sure whether 'footballing reasons' were behind the departure.

By all means read whatever you want into the statement. To me it only reads as a generic statement saying (to paraphrase) that 'we are very ambitious, to meet our targets we had to make management changes'. This is so vague that it actually means very little. In fact, not one of the various explainations for Pardew's departure that I've heard contradicts the press release. It's deliberately vague for a reason. Why read more into it?

Exactly. So, because we don't know the reasons behind the mutual termination, why do people keep jumping to the assumption that Pardew must have been sacked for football reasons, or because Cortese disliked him? Which is pretty much what we have seen. After a deliberately vague media statement there has been nothing but silence on the subject. The truth is, we don't know what happened.

Ay... I sure do. Cheers Pancake.

Least factual post of the day. FACT

Photos would have disintegrated in 25 years, or blown away, or as you say, frozen in ice and now hidden. Since Hillary is no longer with us, I can't see anyone arguing for the record books to be reversed if proof is found backing up Mallory & Irvine's attempt. Funds are being raised right now to finance a trip to investigate a body-shaped feature found on photos. If it's Mallory, than his camera could hold all the answers.

Agree. Harding is good, but I don't get the love-in, he still makes his fair share of mistakes. Dickson comes highly rated, and has shown in patches that he has plenty to offer. At the moment I'd be hard-pressed to choose between them, but the manager can't really drop a player who is doing well. Having Dickson on the bench keeps Harding on his toes.

Isn't it strange how people to the right of centre are so quick to start being offensive, slanderous, and even unintentionally* racist when it fits their purpose. * inserted to generously give DP the benefit of the doubt.

For anyone interested, here's a somewhat juddery video of today's PMQ's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwyQWBbjR9U I'm not sure Stanley is entirely fair on Ed. While he doesn't seem confident, and does have a minor stutter going on, the points he is making are sound, and Cameron is consistently refusing the answer the question (NB, Clegg squirming at Dave's lack of honesty). IMO 6/10 (a bit like Pardew, okay, but could do better). DP, you undermine your own argument by using of the word 'mong'. It is offensive to people with Down's Syndrome, and if you take the term back to it's racial definition origins (now superseded), it is offensive to East Asians, and Native Americans.

I agree with this thread, some of our fans are morons, for example on Saturday, there was me wearing my beanie hat to the game, joining in with the crowd (especially on the 'whos'), and tucking into a nice half-time pizza (wish the pies were veggie). But the the game was ruined for me by some chav muppet in stone island, who kept spitting at the ginger lad in the row in front, and stood at random to tell any passing women to get back to the kitchen. Don't think he even looked at the pitch once, as he seemed to spend the entire game scowling at the crowd. Got to love our fans...

I know what you mean; work should be rewarded and all. But you must agree that societies without some degree of progressive levelling tend to quickly to develop a small ultra rich elite, with the vast majority struggling to live day-to-day. Progressive taxation isn't itself the problem, the real problem is where to set the balance. Agree absolutely. Much of the overspending was wasteful, some of it, such as the bank bailout, essential.

Just being sexist then eh?

sorry, was that supposed to be a joke?

This thread is so partisan. Why not put down your political colours for a second and assess the situation without throwing blame around. The argument over what proportion of the blame should fall on Brown, and what proportion on the bankers is pretty pointless really, they both screwed up royally. Of course, this isn't the conclusion that either side of the debate want to settle with. Labour supporters want to pin the blame on the extremes of ill-regulated capitalism. Tories want to pin the blame on the zealous overspending of a Chancellor-come-PM who massively overspent. Both views have merit. The answer can be found somewhere in the middle. No government should be allowed to spend more than their income (unless there is serious reason to do so, e.g. WW3). Likewise, no banker should be allowed to recklessly play dice with the economy, regulation needs to be tightened. Neither extreme of right or left has been shown to provide effective government. Too much state control bloats and adds bureaucracy; too little leads to gross imbalances between rich and poor. Anyhow, returning to the topic of this thread, I believe we need to completely reconsider the concept of welfare. It should not be a way of life, but it should be there to catch everyone, however poor or wealthy, when they need it to. Our current system is too generous to encourage the poorest to work, but not generous enough to provide any assistance to the people who have been making contributions to National Insurance all their lives. The solution, IMO, is to adopt the Swedish model [ehem!], one which provides everyone, with a massively generous benefit for a short period of time (say 70-80% of last wage (capped at £50k), for 12 months). When the short period elapses your benefit is reduced to a breadline amount (say max per family £350 per month). You can then build your 12 months of benefit back up with future National Insurance payments. The net result is that everyone is very generously supported, but at the same time everyone is encouraged to seek work as fast as possible. [Obviously some benefits would be outside of this proposed system, e.g. disability, single parent etc] As for child allowance, Osborne has probably got it right. I know, it's not perfect, but it's certainly more progressive than the previous system, and to make it fairer still would require making it far more complex for HMRC to administrate (which would reduce any potential savings which, frankly, the Treasury so desperately needs).

Charliedune, for the record, economically, you are making a sensible arguement. However, you devalue your own argument by incorrectly using the term 'Socialist'. New Labour were capitalist, pro-business, and very much right of centre. If other posters used the term Nazi (incorrectly) to refer to the Tories, wouldn't that likewise undermine their own argument?

The OS has his picture?

IMO, the English are not especially friendly, in fact I would say from my experience there is about an equal mix of 'friendly' people in all nations. Having said that, the American's do seem to have mastered a strange artifical form of being friendly, which often makes it hard to tell how genuine they are being. Also, IMO, the countries of SE Asia, seem to have a higher than usual amount of friendly people. If anything, IMO the English are rather insular, often have a chip of 'superiority' on their shoulders, and aren't particularly open when it comes to strangers. As for your second post Chuck, if intepreted in a postive way, I can conclude that you have warped humour and are culturally immature. However if I read it in a less favourable way, I might conclude you have a problem with other races and religions.

If I were asked for £1.80, was near a station, and had time to spare, I'd walk to the counter and buy the ticket for the chap. If he compains, I'd guess that the ticket wasn't what he actually wanted.

Come on Charles, quit being a WUM already.

Post war, I'd guess the 1956 season might hold the record low. I only say this because we only averaged 11,612 for the season, suggesting that some games are likely to have been below 8,333... Of course, we might have been highly consistant (attendence-wise) and not dropped below 10k all season, but it's worth a punt. Edit: re-read OP, and see you've said all that... whoops...

Ay, I second that... as the only salary in my household, I think I could end up in exactly this situation... Upwards of £40k pa sounds like a lot, but when you have a family, and mortgage, it doesn't give you a lot of slack. We don't run a car, and we've even quit booze and meat to save money... remove the child benefit from us, and you will be taking directly from the money we can use to buy children's clothes and shoes. Cheers George.

Agree, Labour are to the right of the Tories... so if you disagree with progressive taxation, I guess voting Labour does indeed make sense.

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